Be Reasonable: Episode #004 – Ian Doherty

Psychic Medium Ian Doherty works with paranormal investigators and offers public and private psychic readings, giving demonstrations in Spiritualist Churches across England. Ian also claims to be able to see peoples Auras and offers Aura art and Aura photography, which he claims offer insight into a persons characteristics and personality.

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Another really interesting insight into the beliefs of others. Ian Doherty seemed like a pleasant chap who genuinely believes he has these abilities (I only say this as there are those who knowingly pretend to be psychic etc; I don’t think Ian is one of them).

When Hayley raised the issue of how Ian could test his claims (about 11:30 into the podcast), Ian’s answer is quite telling… he says that he tests whether his abilities work better under different circumstances. What he has missed is the most important first step: Whether his abilities work at all. This needs to be established definitively before you can meaningfully test under what conditions it appears to work best. To use a medical analogy, you wouldn’t create a new headache drug, let’s call it Psyciquell, and as a first step establish whether it has the same effect on men or women. You would first need to establish that Psyciquell worked in the first place, and actually had an effect by testing it against a control group. It would appear that Ian has asserted that his ability is real and is now basing all his follow up investigation based on this unproven assertion.

I also noticed that Ian has a habit of ending a number of his sentences with something like ‘yeh?’, as if he’s seeking a response, I know we all do it, but have a listen back and it seems noticeably frequent. This could be a regular mannerism on his part, but it was very reminiscent of one of the ways that people get feedback when (knowingly or unknowingly) cold reading. This was a subjective observation on my part, so I may be reading something into that where it doesn’t exist, let me know if you think I’m hearing something that’s not there! I’d love to see an analysis of the speech patterns of people who claim to be psychics/mediums against those that don’t to see if this is something real… any researchers out there looking for an idea for a topic of research?

Thanks again Hayley and Marsh for another thought provoking interview.

Ian mentioned associating several of things with colours – that sounds like a condition called synesthesia. Its pretty common to see colours when thinking of numbers and days of the week (which is what I think Ian said he did)

Rich :
Agree with Nick that it was really interesting.
Ian mentioned associating several of things with colours – that sounds like a condition called synesthesia. Its pretty common to see colours when thinking of numbers and days of the week (which is what I think Ian said he did)
I wonder if there’s a ‘people’ form of it too?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia

Yes, this is why I asked Ian about this condition and if he thought it could be the cause for what he experiences. As you heard, he’s not convinced. However, the overlap in ‘symptoms’ is substantial.

When it came to the issue of synesthesia, it seemed like Ian ruled it out because his experiences did not vary (a color for each phenomenon). I think he was working under the premise that synesthesiacs crossover experiences were random, which is untrue.

Spent my bank holiday Monday morning listening to these podcasts and found each one of great interest. Whilst I am an atheist skeptic it is very important to hear the ‘other’ persons perspective in a calm and rational setting. These podcasts are the first time I have heard this type of discussion without all the American ‘excitement’ from either side of the fence. Very well done and much appreciated.

Thanks for yet another interesting episode! i agree that Doherty seems like a nice person and also one of those who genuinely believe in their abilities.

What I found most interesting was the fact that Ian’s gift (I don’t believe in myself) showed itself during his childhood and that he was encouraged by his mother, because it reminded me so much of the Righteous Indignation podcast interview with Vicky Monroe, who had a similar background. I wonder how many believers out there are the result of well-meaning but ultimately misguided parenting. It’s one of the tasks of us parents (and the rest of the adult world) to help kids distinguish between their imagination and reality, not to encourage them to believe whatever comes to their minds. Not that I blame Ian’s mother – she probably just wanted her kid to feel special. In fact, when I listened to the episode I wished I had a time machine so I could go back to young Ian and explain to him that he is special and valuable as he is and that he doesn’t need any “gift” for that. I would also like to yell at any kids bullying him.